I owe Jayne Fisher a lot. I really do.
Jayne Fisher – a young, pretty and happy face at the back of
her bright, colourful books. A clever YOUNG author. I remember reading her biog
in envy. I could beat her, I thought,
as I chewed on my coco pops. I could be an author younger than her. I would be
the next Jayne Fisher.
I was two years younger than her. I would beat her and
become the next big ‘young author’.
I knew I couldn’t draw, so my books had to be good. I sat
for ages scrawling my ideas down on the reams of printing paper that my mum
smuggled home from work. Then finally, my older brother came home with a typewriter.
He said he got it from a mate down the pub. To be honest, I think he found it
down the tip. It had major problems – two being that the E and the A didn’t
work very well. I had to thump the keys so hard it made a dreadful ‘clank’
noise. One time, no lie, this caused the dog to bark and my Dad to spill his
tea all over his favourite Times cross word. From then on I was consigned to
type in kitchen – alone and festering and with extremely bruised fingers.
Finally, I produced my first masterpiece. My first novel.
Muddles the Mouse. I sent it to Penguin. Although I was rejected, the
publishing house sent me a lovely personal letter and some books encouraging me
to continue.
And I did.
So in some warped way I thank Jayne Fisher and her quirky
garden character books. Whatever became of her, because even though it took me
another 20 odd years to get published, at least she lit the spark for me.
Even sweeter, as I write this, my 7 year old daughter is
upstairs scribbling her own masterpieces. She has already told me she will be
an author and her own personal mission is to write more books than Jacqueline
Wilson. She's already made a good start!
You go girl.
Am I alone here? Are there any other authors that were
inspired to start writing by another?
Yes! (though I was a bit older than you and had already written a lot.) When I was 14 I read Strange Evil by Jane Gaskell, who was 16. Strange Evil was accepted for publication when Jane was 15. Wow! I was inspired and encouraged and convinced I could do the same. Actually I was 30 when my own first book was accepted, but Jane's example helped at a time when I was ready to believe I could do it.
ReplyDeleteI used to write boarding school and adventure stories that were total rip-offs of Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers/Famous Five - but that's how people start out. By copying what they like. Nowadays it's maybe Harry Potter fanfic...
ReplyDeleteI remember coming across my brothers' old homework books (they are twins who are 8 years older than me) At that point they were about 18 and had left home and I was 10, and the books were from when they were 10. They had been asked to write stories about being shipwrecked on a desert island - and I thought they were the most amazing stories ever. They had maps and detailed descriptions of extreme bravery performed by my brothers - and I immediately went off and found an exercise book and started writing my own adventure, with tea stained maps and everything. It is making me want to write one now, just thinking about it… This was a lovely post - I really enjoyed reading it!
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